Maj-Britt could feel the tears coming. She wanted so much to find consolation in Vanja's words, but she couldn't. She somehow had to reciprocate, that was her only chance. And all at once she remembered what she had come here to do. So that she wouldn't let any hesitation overpower her, she started telling the story. She didn't gloss over anything and she didn't leave anything out. She put the entire sad truth into words. How it had been. What she had done.
Vanja sat quietly listening. She let Maj-Britt spill out her whole confession without interrupting. There was only one thing Maj-Britt didn't confess, and that was the plan she intended to carry out. The debt she had to pay off.
In order to dare.
Vanja sat lost in thought when Maj-Britt finished. The sun had retreated and the stripes from the blinds on the wall had faded away. Maj-Britt could feel her heart pounding. With each minute that passed, Vanja's silence became more ominous. Maj-Britt was so afraid of what she would say, how she would react. Whether Vanja would condemn her too and not accept her excuses. It wasn't merely the lies. Now that Maj-Britt understood Vanja's loss, the life she herself had chosen seemed a sheer insult. To her consternation she realised that she carried even more guilt.
'You know, Majsan, I don't think you ever understood how important you were for me over all those years, how much it meant to me that I had you.'
Maj-Britt was stopped cold in the midst of taking a breath. The abrupt change threw her off balance.
'I was so sad when you stopped writing without telling me where you had gone. At first I thought maybe I had done something to make you angry, but for the life of me I couldn't imagine what it might have been. I wrote a letter to your parents and asked them where you were living, but I never got an answer. And then time passed and ... well, everything turned out the way it did.'
What Vanja said was so amazing that Maj-Britt could find no words. How could she she have been important to Vanja? It had been just the opposite. Vanja had been the strong one, the one who was needed. Maj-Britt had been the needy one. That's how it had always been. have been important to Vanja? It had been just the opposite. Vanja had been the strong one, the one who was needed. Maj-Britt had been the needy one. That's how it had always been.
Vanja smiled at her.
'But I never stopped thinking about you. That's no doubt why the dream felt so strong.'
Again they sat quietly for a moment, looking at each other. So much time and yet so little had changed, not really.
'Can't you and I do something together when I get out?'
Maj-Britt gave a start at her words but Vanja continued.
'You're the only person I know out there.'
The question was so unexpected and the thought so disorientating that she had a hard time taking it in. Vanja's words implied so much more, punching big holes in Maj-Britt's solidly anchored image of the way everything was and would continue to be. To think that Vanja wanted to have anything to do with her at all, almost needed her, and of her own accord wondered whether they might do something together when that day came and it was possible.
But it wasn't wasn't possible. And never would be. When the day came that Vanja would have the opportunity to do something, Maj-Britt would no longer exist. She had made up her mind, after all. possible. And never would be. When the day came that Vanja would have the opportunity to do something, Maj-Britt would no longer exist. She had made up her mind, after all.
'I have a year left in here and I think I have something important to do during that year.'
Do something together. A little disturbing possibility had opened up, but she would have to quash it here and now. Everything was still so utterly meaningless. She tried to sort out her thoughts as she listened to what Vanja was saying, but they kept wandering here and there, heading down small unknown turn-offs that hadn't existed before. They dashed without permission down the new paths, cautiously testing to see if they would take hold.
She and Vanja?
Try to capture again a little of what they had lost?
Not be alone anymore?
'I don't know what it is yet but I hope I recognise it when it pops up.'
She tried to concentrate on what Vanja was saying.
'Excuse me, I didn't hear you right. What is it you're going to do?'
'That's what I don't know yet. Just that it's something important. It might be that someone needs my help.'
Maj-Britt realised that she must have missed something Vanja had said.
'How can you know that?'
Vanja smiled but didn't reply. Maj-Britt recognised that expression. She had had it many times when they were growing up, and it always made Maj-Britt extremely curious.
'It's probably not a good idea to tell you about it. You wouldn't believe me.'
Maj-Britt didn't ask anymore, because she realised the direction the conversation was headed. She didn't want to hear about any more dreams that came true. Everything was confusing enough as it was.
There was a knock at the door. The man who had brought Vanja stuck in his head.
'Five minutes.'
Vanja nodded without turning round, and the door was closed again. Then she reached out her hand and placed it on Maj-Britt's.
'Keep your stern God if you like, although He scares you out of your wits. Someday I'll tell you a secret, about what happened that time when I wanted to die and almost died in the flames. But if you can't even believe in a lousy little dream coming true then it's a bit too early yet.'
Vanja smiled but Maj-Britt couldn't manage to smile back, and maybe Vanja sensed her anguish. She stroked Maj-Britt's hand.
'You don't have to be afraid, because there's nothing there to be afraid of.'
And then she smiled the smile that Maj-Britt knew so well. Only now did she realise how much she had missed it. Her Vanja who could always make her feel better, who with her fearlessness had helped her through childhood and always made her see things from another point of view. If only she could have the chance to do things over, to do everything differently. Why had she allowed Vanja to disappear from her life? How could she have abandoned her?
You don't have to be afraid, because there's nothing there to be afraid of there to be afraid of.
More than anything she wanted to be able to share Vanja's certainty. Leave all the terrors behind and once and for all dare to choose life.
'Oh, how I wish I could believe like you do.'
And Vanja's smile grew even wider.
'Couldn't you just be satisfied with a little "maybe"?'
Saba stood waiting at the door when she got home. Maj-Britt went straight to the phone and dialled Monika Lundvall's number.
Ring after ring echoed over the line before she was forced to accept that no one was going to answer.
EPILOGUE.
Snow had fallen during the night. The world lay concealed under a thin white blanket. At least that part of the world she could still see. She had scraped off a spot on a bench and sat looking at her white breath.
One night.
One night she had managed to get through, and now only one hundred and seventy-nine nights were left and just as many days. Then she would be free. Free to do what she wanted. In one hundred and seventy-nine days and just as many nights she would have served out society's punishment for the crime she had committed and she would regain her freedom.
Freedom. The word had previously been such a natural part of her life that she had never even thought about its real significance. Perhaps it was the same with freedom as it was with everything else that was taken for granted. Only with its loss could you gain the ability to really understand its true value.
She had been so envied. A well-paid head surgeon with a fancy company car and luxury flat. A life full of coveted status symbols. The generally accepted proof that she was a successful person, someone important. But each step she had taken to raise herself above mediocrity had distanced her from freedom, because the more she had to protect, the more afraid she had become of losing what she had managed to achieve.
Now she had lost everything. In one single blow all the success she had built up with such effort was shattered, and it was as irrevocably gone as if it had never even existed. Was it really success, if it could so easily be taken from her? She no longer knew. She really didn't know anything. All that was left inside was a vacuum, and she had no idea how she was ever going to fill it. One day when she was forced once and for all to look back on her life, to take stock in earnest with eyes wide open, what would she then find had been of real value? Pure and genuine. If she were forced at that moment to look back, there were only two things. Her overwhelming sorrow at Lasse's death, and her breathtaking love for Thomas. But she had not permitted herself either of these life-changing experiences. She had shut them off, in favour of maintaining appearances. She had let herself be hollowed out so that in the end she had lived as a shadow. She had achieved so much. Oh, what she had accomplished, and, oh, what an effort she had made.
Yet she had lost it all.
Aggravated embezzlement from her superior.
In evaluating the extent to which it was an aggravated crime, they had taken into account whether she had caused her superior significant or pronounced injury.
They had decided that she had done so. The talented and successful Monika Lundvall.
She had deposited the money into the bank account of Save the Children and stuffed the deposit slip in an envelope with Maj-Britt's address on it, and she thought she had posted it. A week later she had found the envelope in her coat pocket, but by that time it was all too late. When she came home from the bank she turned off all the phones, placed both the packet of Zopax and the one containing the sleeping pills within reach on her nightstand and went to bed. Three days later the head of the clinic and a colleague had entered her flat with the help of a locksmith. The bank had called up the head of the clinic. They just wanted to check that everything was in order with regard to the large sum she had withdrawn from the clinic's donation account, and they mentioned her odd behaviour. Naturally they could have been mistaken, but she seemed to be under the influence of drugs. When she awoke in her bed with the head of the clinic and her colleague in the room, the shame she felt was so deep that she couldn't even speak. And although he offered to refrain from filing a complaint with the police if she would only tell him what was going on and what she had done, she chose to keep silent, even when her ability to speak had returned. The daily life that had been hers was already lost. She would never again be able to look any of them in the eye if she confessed to what she had done.
She preferred to face the music.
And in some peculiar way she actually felt liberated after escaping from the absurd reality into which she had locked herself.
Because there were many types of prison. And for that matter, a person who was imprisoned never needed to have come anywhere near a court of law.
There was a letter from Maj-Britt lying in the hall. With deepest regrets she had begged forgiveness for what she had put Monika through, and wrote that she had tried to call repeatedly to take back what she had said. But Monika never answered. She read the letter over and over. First in anger, but later with more and more sorrow. In vain she had tried to find scapegoats in order to create a way to exonerate herself, but in the end she was forced to admit that there was no one else to blame.
A few days before the trial, a letter came from Pernilla. Monika hadn't been in touch, and in her desperation she had refused to answer phone messages, and finally they had stopped coming. The letter was a sign that Pernilla had found out, and the return address frightened her like a sudden noise in the night. Fingers stiff with dread, she had opened the envelope, and the relief she felt when she read the brief letter was indescribable. She had been forgiven. Pernilla had found out everything, and she admitted that at first she had been both angry and sad. But the person who told her had in the end made her understand why Monika had acted the way she had done, and managed to turn her rage to sympathy. But Pernilla wondered about the money she had received. Had Monika been reported to the police because of the money she gave Pernilla? Or was it because of the money she was forced to send to Save the Children?
Only then did Monika understand that it was Maj-Britt who had liberated her.
The sun crept over the rooftops and spread millions of tiny sparkling diamonds in the newly fallen snow. Monika wrapped her jacket tighter around her, but it didn't help much. She saw by the clock that she had spent only half of the hour she was permitted to be outdoors, but no amount of cold in the world could make her go in early.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a door open and someone come out into the courtyard. She didn't look, she didn't dare, she had no idea what rules applied in here for survival. The annihilating feeling of being an outsider and the loneliness she experienced in the midst of all the people at yesterday's evening meal had made her so anxious that she asked to be allowed to go back to her cell early. But it was when they locked the door that she experienced for the first time in her life how it felt not to be able to breathe in a room full of air. She had thought she would die in there. But the only people she could ask for help were the ones who had locked her in, and the torment they were subjecting her to was no careless mistake but a deliberate act. They thought she deserved it.
The impotence she felt had almost killed her.
She sensed that the person who had come outside was approaching, and in a purely defensive reaction she turned her head to get some idea of the possible threat. It was one of the oldest women in the prison; Monika had seen her the day before at dinner. She sat by herself and looked as if nothing that happened in her vicinity actually affected her, and the others in the room seemed to respect her solitude. At first the sight of the woman had made Monika uncomfortable, because of the look in the woman's eyes when they met. As if she were startled, as if she had caught sight of someone she knew. But Monika had never seen the woman before and didn't want to draw attention to herself. That was the way she had planned to get through her time here. By not being noticed.
Now the woman was approaching the bench, and Monika could feel her heart pounding. She remembered the chatter during dinner, the obvious hierarchy, the sense that everyone was acting according to an invisible script in which she had been given no role. And for the life of her she didn't know how she would find her place without getting on the wrong side of someone. She had absolutely no frame of reference as to how she was expected to behave. And yet this was a different type of fear than she had been used to. Inside there was nothing left to harm. Instead it was her body that feared physical pain. That they might assault her.
'Won't you get a bladder infection from sitting there?'
In her gratitude over knowing the answer to the question, Monika's first impulse was to say that it took a bacterium in the urine to provoke a bladder infection, but she bit her tongue to stop herself. It would seem as if she was acting superior.
'Maybe.'
She stood up.
The woman caught a silver-coloured wisp of hair that had come loose and tucked it behind her ear.
'Shall we take a walk?'
Monika hesitated. The woman didn't look particularly dangerous, but to stroll farther away from the buildings alone with her was not appealing. She cast a hasty glance at the door. But she didn't want to go inside yet. Not when there was time left. And she couldn't really say no and stay where she was.
'Sure.'
They began walking slowly across the courtyard. There was no reason to hurry.
'You got here yesterday, right?'
'Yes.'
'How much time did you get?'
'Six months.'
Monika replied politely and quickly to all her questions. So far she was doing fine.
'That's not so bad. The time goes faster than you think when you're bored.'
The woman gave a little laugh and Monika also smiled, to be on the safe side. She realised that she ought to ask a question to show that she was participating in the conversation. Maybe ask how long this woman had been in, but Monika didn't dare. Maybe it wasn't done.
'Sixteen and a half years.'
Monika gave a start.
'But I only have eight months left now.'
She only had a second to be shocked, then she unconsciously slowed her pace. Sixteen and a half years. Not many were given such a long sentence. Only those who had committed really despicable crimes, and apparently the woman she had gone off walking with was one of them. Monika cast a glance back towards the buildings and felt a stubborn desire to go back. She stifled the impulse and tried instead to think up a question of her own. She had to get along with people in here for another six months, after all. It would be crazy to make an enemy on the very first morning.
'What are you going to do when you get out?'
She had done her best to seem easy-going and took a step back in fright when the woman suddenly stopped and turned to her.
'My name is Vanja, by the way.'
She held out her hand.